Tag: owned

The power of 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Warning: this post is about pooping.  You have been warned.]

Ever since my birthday, when I was absolutely waylaid by an ear infection, I have struggled with my running.  Prior to my birthday, I was in a very good groove, and I was routinely completing 5K runs under 30 minutes, which is my usual every day goal whenever I lace up my sneakers and go out for a run.

But ever since my birthday that I spent laid up in bed the entire time, and struggling to get over the ear infection and subsequent what I’m guessing was what seemed like rupturing my ear drum, I have not been able to get back to my old running speeds.  Perhaps it’s age actually starting to catch up to me in some way, shape or form, or perhaps the sickness really took a lot more out of me than I had hoped it would.  Maybe it’s a combination of both, but the fact of the matter is that since then I don’t think I’ve been able to log a sub-30 5K time since April, and I try to not get too down about it, because Father Time outlasts everyone, and from what other runners try and encourage to me is that my split times for my age are still above average.

I’ve lightly dieted and been experimenting with stride and pacing, but nothing seems to get me back to where I’m seeing a leading 2 on my tracker when I hit my stopping point, and even though I’ve been able to occasionally get my pace back to a sub-10 minute mile, my overall 5K times have always crossed the 30 minute threshold.

I don’t know why I typed this all out because it really doesn’t have anything to do with the main subject of this post, but since it’s all related to running I think it just presented itself to me as the best opportunity to get that off my chest without having to make a dedicated post about it.

But anyway, I was on a morning run recently, and probably the #1 biggest concern while running started to emerge near the midway point of my run: the mid-run #2.  All through my running life, I’ve always tried to be cognizant of my body’s status whenever it comes to checking off all of the mental boxes before going on a run, be it casual training or on a formal run or race.  Every runner does, no matter how much they might not want to talk about pooping, it’s just human nature, and everyone poops.

Either way, I actually took care of business prior to this particular run, but perhaps again, symptom of aging, it wasn’t adequate enough or for whatever reason, while I was in the middle of my run, warning alarms started going off in the body that indicated that something inconvenient was about to occur.  And believe me, this is the absolute worst thing any runner wants to have to deal with, because it’s not often where relief is ready at a moment’s notice, be it on the trail, on the course, or casual outdoor running.

Fortunately for me, I had relief available to me, and it was conveniently on my route.  There’s a little park that I pass twice on my usual route, and there happens to be a surprisingly clean little public commode at it, and as long as it wasn’t occupied when I rolled up, I knew it was going to be one of those days where as much as I didn’t want to stop my momentum, it was better than the alternative of risking another 21 minutes to get home and shitting myself along the way.

Thankfully, the facility was available and I was able to take care of business, and as inconvenient as the whole process of stopping, and doing the deed can be, the amount of relief and satisfaction at knowing that you basically saved your own life and completely neutralized the risk of one of the most miserable indignities of the world, offsets the negative.

And in the case of this post, not only does it offset the negative, it outright becomes a positive, because once the physical strain of managing a bowel movement is eliminated from the body, the body is now free to focus all of its energy at the original task at hand – running, in my case.

The thought crossed my mind while I was breezing through the remainder of my run, because I now use a fitness tracker as opposed to all the years in which I did not, I actually have the capability to check out the tangible results of physical performance before and after taking care of business.  I amused myself with this scientific hypothesis, and looking forward to viewing the data after the run helped occupy my mind while I was finishing up my run.

Once again, I did not finish in under 30 minutes, nor was my 5K split under 30 minutes either.  My pace was fortunately still under a 10-minute mile, but I’m still handcuffed from notching that sub-30 5K that I’d like to get back to, and I don’t think I’ll get there unless I simply run more than I do now, but that would come at the expense of lifting weights, which is something I also enjoy doing and harvesting the fruits of such labor.

But no matter, when I got home and checked the data of my run on my phone, I was tickled to see the heat mapping of my pace; I had assumed that my general speed was going to be better after the bathroom break versus before it, but the fact that a lot more green and blue (slower) pace before stopping, and almost entirely yellow-to-red pretty much the entire way back was absolutely hilarious.

The power of 2 is something truly stupendous, and I likened the bathroom break to my bros to being like Sonic the Hedgehog when he hits a springboard on a wall and it sends him shooting off at immediate high speed.

Can’t even think of a good post title to express how satisfying it is that the Dodgers got swept out of the playoffs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ESPN: Milwaukee Brewers sweep Dodgers in the NLCS, advance to the World Series

First things first, congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers for breaking through the glass ceiling and advancing to the World Series.  I would be totally fine with a Brewers championship, and at this point I don’t even care who wins the World Series between them, the Rays and the Indians Guardians who are still duking it out in the ALCS.  Because when the day is over, if I couldn’t have the Braves, then it really didn’t matter who won—as long as it wasn’t the Dodgers.

And no disrespect to the Brewers or the Rays or the Guardians, but this post really isn’t about them, it’s about the Dodgers, and the sheer power of satisfaction that is derived from hate, namely like most people who don’t reside in Southern California, the general dislike for the Dodgers; and the gargantuan horde of their fairweather soft-ass worst in baseball, fans with air quotes.

I’ve thought about it a lot over the last few weeks of playoff baseball, and yeah I don’t really care much for the Dodgers, and I don’t want to see them win and succeed and secure the vaunted three-peat that has eluded even the most dominant teams in baseball history.  But the thing is, I don’t really dislike a lot of their players, like should be the case whenever anyone says they don’t like a particular team.  Obviously it starts with Freddie Freeman, a guy I’m incapable of disliking, and then there’s Mookie Betts, who always comes off as charming, chill and an all-around cool guy.

Despite the fact that hater culture is supposed to dislike guys making insane amounts of money, I don’t harbor any genuine ill-will to Shohei Ohtani; yes he has changed the deferred money game with his $700 million deal, and he might have a poorly-hidden gambling problem, but he does play the game with an air of integrity and brings Japanese courtesy into the spotlight, that he remains a pretty likeable guy.  Even Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whom I was very skeptical of for receiving a ridiculous $300M deal before even throwing an MLB pitch has turned into one of the most talented pitchers in the game, and a complete Iceman once the playoffs come around.  In hindsight, he’s not only been absolutely worth every penny he’s been paid, he’s erring on the side of underpaid, considering just how good, how reliable and how many results he’s delivered.

I do have not nice feelings about guys like Blake Balakey Snell because I think he’s a money-grubbing spinster who only wants to play when it’s most critical, and I get this really negative vibe from Tarik Skubal and I hope he bounces in free agency although the Dodgers are always in play due to their penchant for creative contract structures.  And Max Muncy, I can’t stand, because as decent of a player he objectively is, on a team like the Dodgers, he’s still a fourth-tier contributor, but runs his mouth and acts bigger than he actually is and I like to see him fail, almost as satisfying as it was to see Snell take the L in the critical game 3 that was their true do-or-die night.

But the absolute most satisfying thing about the Dodgers not just losing to the Brewers, but getting swept, eliminated and sent packing to Cancun, is the sheer fact that all of their insufferable, shitty, fairweather fans, no longer have any reason to be happy anymore, and much like the team they act like they follow, their season is over.

Seriously, I’ve encountered fanbases in all variety of sports, and none of them are as bad as Dodgers fans.  I’m talking about Philadelphia sports fans, Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, Alabama fans, Miami Heat fans, San Francisco sports fans.  Awful, insufferable and terrible in their own ways, but none of them are bad as Dodgers fans. 

First, since most of them haven’t even been fans long enough to even remember who Clayton Kershaw is, much less Sandy Koufax or Fernando Valenzuela, they don’t actually know what it’s like to suffer the bad times of sports fandom and have no modicum of grit or toughness that comes from the passage of time of playing annual games of emotional attachment to our respective teams.  That said, they’re all soft, and have absolutely no ability to tolerate being in the crosshairs of all other sports fans, and resort to uncreative and weak retorts, often just going straight to personal attacking, which in the arena of talking shit on the internet is basically tantamount to waving a white flag.

They’re sore losers, and even more sore winners, and have a tendency to gloat and circle jerk at any of their successes, as if exploiting payroll policies as if they were playing baseball team management with a Game Genie attached to it.  They can’t handle any sort of criticism from fans of other bases, but their only real strength are their numbers that have the capability to overwhelm and flood out any shit talk that they can’t handle.

And much like the general vibe of Southern California living, they’re mostly comprised of flakey, douchey, attention-seeking, vapid, and under-sports-educated douche flakes.  The Algorithm feeding me clips of Dodgers fans reels and content felt like AI trolling, and I found myself getting so inundated by so much of their bullshit that I had to eventually start manually thumbs downing them so I could hopefully not see them any further.

Needless to say, this whole diatribe reinforces the notion that the vast majority of my general dislikes for certain sports teams, almost always stems from their fans, and the unfortunate fact that in this connected world with social media outlets, it’s nigh impossible to not be exposed to them in some fashion.  And over the last few years, with the rise of the Dodgers, their fans have absolutely launched themselves to the top of the mountain as being the absolute shittiest fans out there.

And seeing them all suffer, and knowing that their season with all their hopes and aspirations for the three-peat have all come to a brutal halt, is among the chief reasons why it’s so satisfying that the Dodgers lost.

I love that it came at a sweep, because few things in sport are more humiliating than getting swept.  Losing game 1 probably made all their shitty fans cry luck, fluke, we can still even things up tomorrow.  Losing game 2 brought more anxiety and concern, but there have been many examples in history where a team dropped 0-2 and still come back to win a best of seven.  But game 3 was the best, because it was started by Balakey Snell, he who played hardball with the league and got a fat 5/$182M deal with the Dodgers with their usual deferred payment plan bullshit, rode the train to a World Series last year, and pulled his usual loaf-in-first-half, start-trying-in-second-half this season, and still got knocked around in both of his starts in this year’s playoffs, when he was presumably in try-mode.

But as most baseball/sports fans know, falling 0-3 is basically the kiss of death, seeing as how outside of hockey, only one team in sports history has ever overcome 0-3, being the 2004 Boston Red Sox that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also happened to play a pivotal role in.  Although probably nothing in sports history would be worse than the Dodgers overcoming an 0-3 deficit, math was most definitely not on their side.

I predicted that either the Brewers would win in a blowout, or the Dodgers would win game 4 by a slim margin, because they had to have been in full blown panic mode, all hands would be on deck, and survival was all that mattered, and in cases like that, either their gambles pay off, or they blow up in their faces, with no middle ground.

When Ohtani finally broke out of his annual playoff slump, with a grandiose three-run home run, I thought to myself, oh boy, here’s the catalyst for the improbably and inevitably insufferable comeback for the ages, but the Milwaukee Brewers of all teams in history, this 2026 edition, seemed to shrug it off, and began chipping away at the deficit, and by the time the 9th inning rolled around, had hung six unanswered runs, and were on the precipice of advancing to the World Series, but more importantly, sweeping the disliked Dodgers out of the playoffs and effectively saving the game of baseball, at least before it will more than likely go on strike after this season.

And the best part about the whole thing, is that this all happened at Dodger Stadium, and all their shitty fairweather fans who were mostly there because it’s just the cool thing to do in LA and don’t actually know shit about baseball, got to see this epic meltdown of expensive proportions, and got to take part in being on the wrong side of the decision that every sports fans that isn’t impressed by the Dodgers, was rooting for to happen.

Honestly, I think I can comfortably say that the Dodgers losing and getting bounced from the playoffs brings me more joy than if the Braves had won the NLCS and gone to the World Series.  That’s the power of sports hate.

At this point, I don’t even care who wins the World Series.  I think it would be a gasser, if the Brewers who swept and have to wait, lose all their momentum and go ice cold, while the ALCS maybe goes all seven games, and the 85-win Guardians emerge, and riding momentum, topples the Brew Crew, and we have another season of a shitty weak squad getting hot at the right moment, Cleveland’s sports curse is snapped, and then baseball goes on strike.  But as long as it’s not going to be the Dodgers hoisting the Commissioner’s trophy at the end, it’s all going to be good.

Cool Runnings – the Korean Remix

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Korea Herald: South Korea posts third-best time in the Men’s 4×100 meter relay race at the Asian Games, but are ruled disqualified for no clear reason; upon official appeal is Korea correctly awarded the bronze medals

Man, when I came across this story, and I saw the photograph of the Korean relay team in question, I had to throw my head back and laugh heartily at the obviousness of this entire piss-poor optics scenario.  As much as western people love to extol how great certain Asian cultures are, the sad fact of the matter is that a whole lot of Asia is still racist as fuck, especially towards black people.

Perhaps not to the hostile cruelty that of white people and generations of enslavement and torture, but even to this day, there’s a tremendous amount of general ignorance and xenophobia when it comes to those of black skin tones being in Asian countries, regardless of how legally allowed or birthright they might have.

The fact that the organizers of the Asian Games had no clear explanation of why South Korea was disqualified from the 4×100 meter is very obvious and doesn’t need one, because most people with brains can probably figure out the whole story, just by looking at the photograph of the relay team Korea had fielded for the event.

So let’s just get it out of the way, and drop the facts:

Biwesa Daniel Gassama (far left) is born of parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo who came to South Korea as refugees.  He was born in Korea, but that didn’t make him automatically a Korean citizen, he acquired his citizenship when his mother became officially naturalized in 2018.  He went to elementary, middle and high school in Korea and intends on serving out his mandatory two-year stint in the military as all Korean citizens do.

Joel Jin Nwamadi (far right) is Korean by birthright as since he has a Korean mother; dad is Nigerian.  His story is less complicated as one of his parents is Korean, and despite his obvious bi-racial appearance, Asian Games officials only need to see a names like “Nwamadi” and “Biwesa” and it makes them blush.

Obviously, by the rules, Korea had done nothing illegal, or brought in any ringers or expedited expats like France does in the World Cup, but that didn’t stop Asian Games organizers from freaking out at seeing two dudes with dark skin, and just preemptively ringing the bell for a DQ.

Naturally, there’s nothing about this whole scenario that isn’t sad, bothersome and doesn’t cheapen Korea’s success, but at the same time it doesn’t really seem that surprising, given the general propensity of Asian cultures to act embarrassingly when it comes to their inherent xenophobia.  I’m not saying it was in the least bit right or defending their actions, but as an Asian person who is pretty familiar with lots of Asian cultures, I just can’t say that I found this to be at all that surprising.

But hey, at least Korea was actually successful with their appeal and getting the decision corrected, because it would be a real travesty if these sprinters all went home empty handed, in spite of the concrete evidence of their third-place finishing time.  Always proud to hear of Koreans achieving success in anything, especially athletics.

This is basically like a lite-Korean version of Cool Runnings, when the Jamaican bobsled team qualified for advancement into the medal round, but were mysteriously disqualified, with some ambiguous excuse of not having enough competitive experience.  And when John Candy’s character Irv Blitzer confronted the IOC and called them out on their racism, they were reinstated with no real explanation or apology.  This really wasn’t that different of a situation, but it was two black guys instead of four, and instead of bobsleds, they were still track sprinters. 

And in the age of where what’s old can become new again, this would make for a pretty interesting re-make of Cool Runnings.  However, the reality still remains that for whatever reason, Disney doesn’t seem to acknowledge the existence of Korea or its culture, based on how out of the way they remain at avoiding creating anything at all inspired by Korean culture, so there’s probably a fat chance that this happens.  Probably better suited for one of Korea’s film bigwigs like CJ Entertainment to pickup instead, and it would probably end up a better production in their hands anyway.

White people learning Asian languages to create content is omega-level white privilege

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I try to not be envious of too much in my life, but I’m also human, and sometimes we just can’t help those types of feelings when we come across them.  That being said, I often lament when I see talented musicians, artists, or even video gamers, and ponder if I could have become as talented as they are, had I not been such an unambitious shit and strayed away from them.

But if there’s one talent that I often feel what could possibly be construed as envy, it would be polyglots.  Obviously English is my native tongue, but I can speak enough Korean to survive easily in Korea, despite my reading being about as good as a grade schooler, with my writing being even weaker.  I know enough Japanese to probably not be completely dominated in Japan, and I’m almost to a two-year streak in Duolingo, practicing Español at least 30 minutes every single day.

However, I’m nowhere near as capable of those people who would be considered actual polyglots, where they can switch languages as easy as a manual transmission driver changing gears, and I’m usually awestruck at how these linguistic masters can hang with just about anyone when they need to.

Lately, I don’t know why The Algorithm is showing me these things, but occasionally I’ve seen videos of white guys who film videos of themselves surprising Chinese people in public places, usually restaurants, when they pretend to be meek shy tourists at their establishments, and after letting a Chinese server struggle to communicate with them in English, they bust out flawless Mandarin or Cantonese, much to their surprise as well as any bystanders in the background.

It was interesting the first time I saw one of these, and dare I say entertaining.  But when it becomes apparent that this is pretty much the only trick that these content creators have, regardless of how many other languages they speak, it becomes obnoxious to me, and I would go as far as to say that it’s also exploitative of, usually Chinese people, because I have yet to see any of these clowns try this schtick with Koreans, Japanese, or any other Asian culture other than Chinese.  I’m not saying they haven’t, and videos don’t exist, but god help me if I ever came across one, especially if it were with Koreans.  It’s bad enough that these polyglots probably speak better Korean than I do, but I’d be incensed to see them pull their schtick on my people.

As the subject of this post says, white guys picking up Asian languages, and then using their talents to farm content on the internet is a level of white privilege that I would say is definitely omega-level.  Because frankly not many other demographics in the world could really get away with this like white guys can, and frankly I’m not entirely sure that any demographic is as attention-starved as white content creators are to even come up with this kind of gimmick.

Just like a black American couldn’t go into Africa and flex some Swahili and expect to surprise some locals, I can’t go into Korea, identify myself as America, and even remotely come close to impress any locals.  Mexicans weren’t at all impressed with my Español on my last time in Mexico, and whenever I’ve been into France, Italy, or Germany, I feel like I’m met more with disdain that I don’t speak their languages.  I highly doubt such would be that different even if I did speak their languages.  It’s like I, or any other Asian person is expected to have learned their languages, based on the educational stereotypes of us.

The thing with all these white polyglots is that they all feel at home and that their bread and butter content is that of tricking and surprising Chinese people.  I don’t seek, but The Algorithm doesn’t bother to feed me any examples of them doing this to any other demographics, and it’s always Chinese people that they film their shitty content with.

And I’m obviously not Chinese, but I am a fellow Asian, and I do take some objection to their exploitation of my Asian brethren in order for them to film content.  What I really want to see is for all these Chinese restauranteurs to start adopting the mindset that everyone who walks into their establishments should be expected to know some Mandarin or Cantonese, and if they do, great, but if they don’t, start unloading the exasperation and passive aggression of disgust, and basically make it so that these white clowns don’t have any ammo to make any further shitty videos.  No-sell the shit out of their reveals and respond with dismissive remarks with rebuttals like “oh good, you do speak Chinese” or better yet, respond in English, like natives tend to do whenever tourists bungle their way them in their native tongues.

We have exorcised the demons

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

MLB: Atlanta Braves defeat Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 in the decisive game 3 of the Wild Card Series, to advance to the NL Division Series

Well how ‘bout them apples?  With one win, the Braves exorcised numerous demons, from getting the Phillies monkey off their back, breaking the streak of Barves always get knocked out in the first round, as well another astute observations people have made leading up to the game, that the Barves always lose winner-take-all games.

Naturally, I had everything to do with this, seeing as how I haphazardly posted my requiem for the team in advance of the deciding game 3, with me genuinely, firmly believing that another elimination at the hands of the Phillies was all but inevitable.  Fate has a way of thinking that they have a sense of humor, and when it comes down to it, when I take a firm stance on something, I have to be proven wrong, regardless of if I’m inwardly pleased with the end result.  But my belief was clearly genuine and not artificially made up with the intention of tricking fate, because otherwise the Braves would have been the Barves last night, and lost.

That being said, I also realized that I needed to make a sacrifice in order to help the squad this year.  Back in 2021, I stated that I would buy a Dugout Mug, which I deemed to be the most useless product available in the entire free market, but then I also stated that should the Braves actually win the World Series, I would plunk down my own money and purchase one of these stupid pieces of shit, because sacrifice is necessary in order to hope to get something that I want. 

True to my word, when the Braves actually won the World Series, I plunked down $80 and got one.  It’s been used, maybe twice, because it’s not an ideal receptacle to drink from since it’s not really dishwasher safe because it’s fucking wood, and I have to imagine mixing wood with liquid too frequently, much less alcohol probably doesn’t help its longevity and if I paid $80 for this piece of shit, I may as well try to make it last, and be a reminder of the sacrifice I made to do my part in helping bring the World Series to Atlanta in 2021.

I could go ahead and do another Dugout Mug, but they literally have added no new merchandise in over five years, so I’m curious if they’re actually still in business and not just running some skeleton ghost site that doesn’t actually work, but I’ve decided that in the same vein of purchasing something stupid, is a waste of money and that nobody really asked for, I’ll go the record and declare that if the Braves go all the way this year, I will purchase these idiotic drink coasters, adorned with the box score diagram of key plays from the Braves’ 2021 playoff run.

I do feel that this is an adequate sacrifice to offer up to Fate, because my house already has a ton of coasters, because mythical wife grabs them up from all the various bars and places we’ve been to and they actually kind of are cool little souvenirs in their own right, but in most cases, they cost us no money, and here I am offering up a sacrifice that would eat into both my wallet, as well as consume space in the home where I have to fight tooth and nail in order to liberate a single inch from the audition of Hoarders: Buried Alive my fellow residents inflict upon our home.

It’s a lofty ask, seeing as how the Braves’ next opponents are MLB’s favorite team in history, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and seeing as how the Braves are not regarded enough to constantly get the woeful 2:30pm starts throughout the Wild Card series, it’ll be interesting to see what it’s like when the least regarded team in the playoffs is matched up against the most regarded team.

For the record, the Braves have gone 5-1 against the Dodgers throughout the season, along with a glorious sweep when they came to Atlanta, but the playoffs are a completely different beast, the team still has an anemic offense, and the Dodgers are simply a team constructed for championship caliber play.  Should the Braves manage to advance, they’d play either the Brewers or the Padres, and I would not get my hopes up too high against any team in the American League in spite of their generally unimpressive records, because the MLB playoffs are the ultimate crapshoot and it’s always a matter of what team gets hot and rides the momentum to the finish line.

That being said, my offer stands, if the Braves go all the way, I’ll plunk down $50 and get these dumb coasters, that I will resent existing in my home, but be fondly reminisced of how and why they made they way here.

Anyway, I’m not any more optimistic about their chances of going all the way, as I was going into a deciding game against the Phillies, but stranger things have happened in sports, and my offer of sacrifice is out there, and hopefully will be tempting enough for Fate to take me up on it.

A pre-requiem for the 2026 Atlanta Barves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After Dylan Lee gave up two straight homers almost immediately after the Braves had clawed and scratched their way to a 3-1 lead going into the 8th inning, I immediately saw the writing on the wall.  As Braves fans, we’ve all seen this script before, and from this point on, it was just clenching and hoping the brutal cycle of abuse that comes with being a Braves fan would come to an end, but not be willing to put any money on it that it would happen today. 

Two innings later, the Phillies win game 2, and we’re headed to the winner-take-all game 3, later tonight.  The only series out of the four wild card matchups to have to go the distance, as the White Sox, Yankees and Padres all took care of business and won two immediate games to advance to the divisional series.

Over the last 14 hours or so, I’ve had a lot of thoughts swirling in my brain, that I knew I wanted to write something about it, but wasn’t sure what angle to triangulate on and what tone to take when doing it.  Do I try and tempt fate and write something scathing and completely doom-and-gloom about the Braves’ chances tonight with hopes that I will be proven wrong, and that they’ll hang a 12-2 clobbering just so I’ll be made to look stupid but still be happy that they won?  Do I preemptively write out the post I had formulating in my head about how Philadelphia sports seem to solely exist to ruin the hopes and dreams of Atlanta sports, based on just how many times Philadelphia teams have eliminated Atlanta teams in postseason play throughout history?  Do I make an itemized list of Barves postseason failures over history?

I don’t know.  But I wanted to write something, before game 3, because, well, I don’t know why.  It’s like just my way of processing things, and maybe a combination of all of the above.  Writing something about the Braves becoming the Barves in October on an annual basis just is something that I’m compelled to do, and I hope for the best, but am prepared for the worst.

The fact that all three other matchups concluded means that for once, the Braves don’t have to play at 2 pm, and get a prime-time game that starts at around 8 or so, so more eyes can watch as the Braves will probably choke and lose to the Phillies in the playoffs, so that they will be 0-4 against them historically, with three eliminations over the span of the last five years.

It doesn’t matter how well the Braves have handled the Phillies in the regular seasons throughout all these seasons, the fact of the matter is that for whatever reason, they just can’t seem to overcome them in the playoffs.  2022 was particularly brutal, because the Braves had 101 wins and played most of the year as the de-facto best team in the league, but they took their foot off the gas going the playoffs, had a bye, and immediately got smoked by the 87-win Phillies.  In fact, when the Braves drop to the Phillies tonight, they will have done so as the higher seed in three-straight eliminations, adding insult to injury, and at this point there’s really nothing more that can be said about the agony of constantly falling short to a common tormentor.

Dylan Lee, is a guy I hope I do not see again tonight, and if by some miraculous act of god they win and advance, is a guy I hope I don’t see again for the remainder of the playoffs, and frankly on this team ever again.  It’s nothing personal, but after his game 2 performance, that should be the nail in the coffin as far as his favor with any Braves fan should be.  Every now and then, we see the eventual winner of the World Series do some wonky things with the bullpen, and usually there are some guys who lose favor and are sparsely seen, no matter what their role was in the regular season and the journey to get to the playoffs.  Craig Kimbrel, in spite of his success as a closer was this guy for Boston in one notable year, and the Dodgers completely replaced all their back-end relief with Roki Sasaki just last year.  Dylan Lee, I hope, is the guy that Braves fans never see again, regardless of any positive contributions he may have had in the past.

In all likelihood, the Phillies will be starting Zack Wheeler, their ace, on short rest, which just adds to the feeling of dread for Braves fans.  The Braves used their two best in games 1 and 2, and got away with a split, and the Phillies, out of necessity couldn’t use Wheeler until tonight, but as it stands, we have Wheeler versus whatever the Braves have left.  Most likely Grant Holmes, who has been a fifth-starter type who has been inconsistent and does not inspire faith going into a deciding elimination game.

Needless to say, take everything all of the above, and I do not have a good feeling about tonight’s outcome.  I want to be wrong more than anything, and this is an instance where being right would bring no joy, other than to be able to sigh and say, welp, at least I was right.  The Braves’ offense is still anemic and has never been fixed at any point in the season, and has relied tremendously on the strength of their pitching, but you can’t win games if you don’t score runs. 

Wheeler will either be lights out, or succumb to the rigors of working on short rest, but knowing the Braves’ bats, I’d wager on the former, and I think the chances are way higher that we have same shit, different year, with the Braves going out in the first round, regardless of the fact that MLB added an even first-er round to the playoff field with the Wild Card – if the Braves make the playoffs, they’re destined to get bounced in whatever round comes first to them, because I’m not, and I can’t have any more kids, so I can’t produce any more babies to bless them with any more baby luck.

This shouldn’t be eating at me this much, seeing as how lackadaisical of a baseball fan I’ve been over the last decade or so, but I guess that’s the nature of being a sports fan and a fan of a team.  No matter how much you try to not let it affect you, it just does.

Prove me wrong, fate.

WTF is WWE doing #312

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Turnabout is fair play, and I can be just as critical about the WWE as I can about AEW or anyone else when I think they’re doing something stupid and asinine questionable.

And the topic in question is the decision the E made to not air the Worlds Collide show that took place and was taped on September 26, and held it off until September 30.  The originally described rationale was that the E did not want to explicitly go head-to-head against AEW’s All Out show, which happened on the same night, also in the city of Chicago, and that they would save the airing of the show until the following Wednesday, so they could plop it down right on top of a similar time slot to AEW’s weekly Dynamite programming.

In doing so, it’s kind of like they symbolically threw in the towel at remotely even trying to compete with AEW on the 26th, and thought that they could use the content to muck with the ratings game on the 30th, but the issue I had was the fact that the internet has no capability of shutting the fuck up, and that it would be inevitable to make it from the 26th to the 30th, without some, if not all of the results of Worlds Collide being spoiled by then.

It also didn’t help that in the gap between taping and airing, was a live RAW episode, and whether they took it into consideration or not, they basically spoiled another Worlds Collide match when Roxanne Perez was featured on RAW, not carrying the AAA Reina de Reina’s Championship blet, which spoiled the fact that she did not defeat La Catalina, and anyone with a brain paying attention would know that when it airs on the 30th.

This, was extra salty for me, as I’ve grown quite high on Roxanne Perez and her match at Worlds Collide was one that I was really looking forward to watching.

One thing that nobody could have ever anticipated either, was the unfortunate and untimely sudden passing of Benjamin Satterley AKA Pac AKA Neville on the 27th, because everyone knew that the Dynamite on the 30th was going to immediately pivot into being a tribute show to Pac, and the optics are poor on the WWE to try and run counterprogramming to a tribute show, for a guy that was apparently very well liked, respected and cared for by performers all across the industry, regardless of who they were working for.

Naturally, the WWE didn’t budge, and they still plopped Worlds Collide on the 30th.  Despite how much I wanted to see it, preferably live, I didn’t watch it yet, because like many wrestling fans, I was upset by the passing of Benjamin Satterley, and I had tuned into AEW; a little weird to see the decisions to bring Bryan Danielson and Wardlow back on this specific night, but the Will Ospreay and Ricochet match was amazing, and it was a pretty good night of just pure wrestling and working, in the name of honoring the life of Pac.

But overall, poor form on the WWE and their gradually deteriorating soulless operations.  The choice to not run Worlds Collide live to me, seemed cowardly in not wanting to run in direct opposition to AEW, as well as disrespectful mostly to the AAA talents that were on the card, because they don’t get nearly the same exposure as all of the main roster and NXT talents do, and needlessly manipulating the airing of a show where they were going to get some larger billing, seems disrespectful and inconsiderate to their travel and effort.

I will watch the show when I get a chance, because I’m high on the AAA product, and anything they’re involved in is usually very fun and good quality, but massive egg on the E for handling this the way it was done.  Tf are you bean counting cocksuckers thinking?